In a conventional 4-way navigation mechanism, a navigation button having four directional tabs (e.g., North, South, East and West) sits over four corresponding resistance-varying sensors which incrementally vary in resistance depending on how much the resistance-varying sensors are compressed. When a user pushes down on a particular tab to specify a direction, the navigation button pivots about an axis which extends through the midline of the navigation button. In response, the resistance-varying sensor directly underneath the particular tab undergoes maximum compression and provides maximum resistance, and the adjacent resistance-varying sensors undergo partial compression and provide moderate resistance.
A programmed processor, which electrically connects to each of the four resistance-varying sensors, measures the resistance provided by each resistance-varying sensor to discern the direction specified by the user. For example, if the user presses the rightmost tab of the navigation button to specify East, the programmed processor measures (i) maximum resistance from the resistance-varying sensor directly underneath the rightmost tab due to maximum compression and (ii) moderate resistance from the adjacent resistance-varying sensors, i.e., North and South, due to partial compression. The programmed processor concludes that the user has specified East since the resistance-varying sensor directly underneath the rightmost tab provides the highest resistance.